


Candles

by Impressioniste



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 01:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impressioniste/pseuds/Impressioniste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris and Sebastian talk in the Chantry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candles

The first thing to hit him upon entering the Chantry was the overwhelming scent of incense and wax. The incense was thick and spicy and smoky, invading his nostrils almost against his will. He could taste it when he breathed. Walking aimlessly, he stopped short before a wall of blood-red candles, some of them tall and barely-used, some little more than melted stubs. Melted wax dripped down the sides of several of them in hot, red rivulets.

He couldn’t help but think of blood. He supposed that was the idea, at least partially. For a group of people who so venerated Andraste, they certainly seemed to be enamored of her suffering. Why else would the iconic image of the very sword that pierced her heart be so very commonplace? It all seemed rather morbid, especially when people saw fit to remind him that the Maker supposedly loved his ‘children’.

“Fenris?”

A familiar voice echoed off the high ceilings, and Fenris cursed his conspicuous appearance as he looked up from the candles’ flickering flames to see Sebastian, who smiled down at him rather magnanimously as he descended a rather lushly carpeted staircase.

“I did not expect to see you here again,” Sebastian said, his voice almost unpleasantly benign. Fenris frowned. It was difficult for him to see welcoming, inviting gestures as such without strings attached. And the Chantry and those who followed it seemed so very talented at attaching strings to everything. Most of his direct memories were of the Tevinter Chantry, but there were some things that seemed to be steadfastly unchanging between different religious sects.

“I was… in the area.” Fenris averted his eyes, looking back at the wall of burning candles.

“Of course,” Sebastian replied, and Fenris rankled at the disbelieving, almost patronizing tone. “Or, perhaps, it was the Maker’s hand that guided you here.”

“And what purpose would that serve?”

“Perhaps he thought you would find the answer you seek for whatever is troubling you.”

“Nothing is ‘troubling’ me.”

“And yet, here you are.”

Fenris frowned. Sebastian’s insistence was infuriating, but it was difficult to get angry at someone who was regarding him with such calm-voiced kindness, even if that kindness was self-righteous in nature. Not to mention the stir it would cause if he got into an argument in the Chantry. Unwanted attention was the last thing Fenris wanted, right now.  
  
Fenris hoped for a moment that if he stood there silently long enough that Sebastian would simply go away and leave him in peace, but the man was stubborn as a mule, it seemed, and did not appear to be at all interested in going away. It was time to try a different approach.  
  
“How can you be so certain that what you believe is true?” he asked, not meeting Sebastian’s uncomfortably piercing gaze.  
  
“Faith is not something that can be explained in simple terms,” was the immediate reply. Fenris sighed. Sebastian had hardly missed a beat with his answer.  
  
“And to what end is having all this… faith?” Fenris frowned, staring into a candle’s flame intently as it danced back and forth in front of his eyes.  
  
“Forgiveness. Redemption. Certainty.” Sebastian nodded, crossing his arms in front of his chest, the candlelight reflecting off his immaculate white armor. “Comfort in knowing that even after all the pains of this life, we will be rewarded with eternal solace at the Maker’s side.”  
  
“Sounds like a fairy tale told by foolish men to delude their fears away,” Fenris chuckled derisively.  
  
“And what do you fear, Fenris?” Sebastian asked catching Fenris rather off-guard. “Would it not be a comfort to you to know that you would remain at the Maker’s side, for all eternity, that there would be more to your death than dirt and ashes?”  
  
“I do not fear death,” Fenris growled, turning on Sebastian and glaring sharply into his cool, clear blue eyes. “I have seen mages and magisters, spirits and demons, bloody abominations—things in this life that would send any god-fearing man screaming into the Void. I have stared death in the face and breathed his cold, black breath back at him.”

That finally seemed to give Sebastian pause, and both men were still and quiet, regarding each other silently for a moment before stepping back. Fenris’ gaze returned to the candles.

“Do you know what those candles represent?” Sebastian asked a few moments later, with a voice that seemed more tentative and less condescending than before.

“No.”

“People frequently come to the Chantry and light a candle for a lost loved one, someone they wish to remember.”

Fenris was silent.

“There is a box at the end of the table where people may submit the name of their loved one on a scrap of paper to be remembered at the next Chant,” Sebastian continued.

“I see.”

“Perhaps you would… like to remember your sister?” Sebastian offered.

“No.” Fenris’ response was immediate and visceral.

“I underst—” Sebastian’s words were cut off by the sound of a loud bell echoing throughout the Chantry. He stopped and sighed, and bowed lightly to Fenris.

“I have duties I must attend. We can speak another time. And, if you should change your mind about the can—”

“It is no concern of yours,” Fenris interrupted, and Sebastian simply nodded and left, returning from whence he came.

Five minutes later, Sebastian was lighting a brazier of incense at the front of the Chantry when he caught Fenris quietly leaving out of the corner of his eye. What he did _not_ see was the tiny, half-melted, misshapen stub of a candle all the way at the end of the wall—the one far-removed from all the others with the freshly-lit flame. Nor did he see the tiny, ragged, half-torn scrap of paper shoved hastily into the remembrance box with a name scribbled across it in an awkward, clumsy, childish hand.

When the sisters emptied the box that evening to make a list of all the remembrances for the next Chant, they couldn’t help gossiping amongst themselves over a single, strange name on the list, trying to figure out which of them might know of this person, or the story behind their name.

But none of them knew anyone named, ‘Leto’.

  



End file.
